The Day After

by Christopher ChantrillNovember 08, 2006 at 10:14 am

WITH AT LEAST a gain of 30 seats in the House of Representatives and a gain of 4 to 6 seats in the United States Senate the Democrats have earned a famous victory. It seems to be about average for a second-term off-year election.

I have felt for some time that it was time to Democrats to be back in power. They need to be in power to connect with reality in the post 9/11 world, and the American people need to see them at it. So it is probably best if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008.

Right now the Democrats say that it is all Bushs fault. They experience the War on Terror as a continuation of a cycle of violence, not a clash of civilizations. Very well. Let us put the question to the proof.

That was, after all, the question in the mid to late 1970s. Was the Cold War a fight against a cruel and brutal Soviet Union, or was it an inordinate fear of Communism, as President Carter put it. The question was put to the American people, they elected Ronald Reagan as president, and the rest is history.

The great issues of the next decade will be the conflict with Islam, the failure of the welfare state, the refinement of the global economy, and the question of life. Notice how the two political parties in the United States line up.

For the Democrats the War on Terror is a Republican trick, the welfare state is a source of jobs and power, the global economy is something to hide from, and life is a choice.

For the Republicans the War on Terror is a clash of civilizations, the welfare state is a tragic mistake that has cratered the poor and the dependent, the global economy is a challenge to be embraced, and life is a sacred gift.

When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of agesthey seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the means appointed was a damning sin.
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.
E. G. West, Education and the State

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since
1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and
philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be
inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie
that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.
Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all.
In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness...
But to make a man act [he must have]
the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove
or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

[In the] higher Christian churches... they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

When we received Christ, Phil added, all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital